THE EASE & JOY OF MORNINGS (December 2018)

Join Kozan for “Ease and Joy of Mornings,” December 16—a quiet morning designed to introduce you to the art of zazen. It is an ideal entryway for beginners and even intermediate or long-time meditators who want a refresher course on this “dharma gate of joy and ease” as described by Zen Master, Dogen-Zenji.

3-D Koan—A Reflection on Street Retreat by Joshin Byrnes

This post is the first in a series of reflections on the Street Retreat experience, Street Koans. Joshin Byrnes, Vice Abbot of Upaya Zen Center and Upaya Residents spent four days on the streets of Albuquerque in September, 2015.

I think a street retreat is like a koan in 3-D. Koans and Street Retreat allow us to drop into a space of not-knowing what to do, of not having an answer, and of not relying on the usual tricks in our bag. Upaya’s good friend, Enkyo Roshi, once gave me some guidance for working with koans. She suggested that I pick one and write it out longhand so that it becomes part of my body. Then put it away and live with it in the background of day-to-day life for the next week. A practice like this might allow us to see the koan in the world.

Joshin on Street Retreat in Albuquerque, 2015

When I’m on the street, I tend to recall one koan in particular – “The Man Up a Tree.” In this story, a man hangs onto the branch of a tree by his teeth, and the tree precariously leans off the side of a cliff. Along comes a little Zen master who asks, “What is the one truth you could say to save your life?” If the man opens his mouth to speak, he falls. And if he doesn’t, he will also fall. Either way, he falls.

When looking at the world through this koan I notice that my first tendency is to go into problem solving mode in order to find the so-called right answer to living. I feel driven to “fix” the problem – which is how I habitually approach situations in my life. This is how we are conditioned in our modern culture; many of us are driven by this tyranny of fixing things. But isn’t it the case that as soon as I see things as a problem that exist outside of me, I separate myself from the situation?

This way of thinking prevents me from dropping off the cliff and into the situation with my whole body. It keeps me from becoming completely intimate with the situation. I am caught up in a complicated calculus of fixing, helping, saving, and achieving. And this calculus is often driven by a kind of moral outrage, martyrdom, and heroism rather than intimacy. Our usual ways can separate us, and if we sow the seeds of separation we will harvest separation. We seem to have a habit of breaking reality up into pieces that need saving, fixing, and answers. Then we manipulate the pieces, and we get out of touch with life, with reality, with the world, and with ourselves.

Can we work from a place of unity instead?

What this koan pushes me to see is that, inevitably, the poor tree-hanger will lose his life. How much of my life goes quickly by as I try to figure out the right answer? How much of my life do I spend trying to avoid the realities of impermanence, interdependence, and suffering? There is a freedom that can exist in that moment of recognizing the truth of life and letting go of the pressure we put ourselves under to have the one right answer.

What would it be like if we could start from a place of intimacy rather than fixing? Increasingly, I trust that something beneficial is more likely to come out of intimacy with each situation. Maybe this is a better way than my old habit of feeling like I’m hanging over a cliff having to come up with the answer that will save my life from a free fall into the next moment, the next breath, the next relationship, the next situation. Perhaps, as Thomas Merton says, the world is not the problem, rather my unwillingness to fully engage in it is.

Walking through the 3-D Koan of the street, I start to see my fear, my arrogance and my judgments. I get in touch with the outrage that blinds me from some really important and intimate parts of the whole situation. There is a place in our lives for fixing, but there is also a place for letting go and finding freedom in being one with the situation and everyone in it. On the street we become one with homelessness, one with the sidewalk, one with the soup kitchens, one with the wealthy, one with the service workers, one with the free toothbrushes. One with each thing. From this place of oneness, wisdom arises. Suddenly, my teeth and the cliff and even the Zen master’s question aren’t the point any more.